


Weak

by touch



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, also naruto being cheeky, lee & tenten friendship, relatively mild in my opinion, touch starved gaara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 11:07:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touch/pseuds/touch
Summary: While every nation counted their dead and prepared to return home, the leaders stood watch, speaking to their subordinates about numbers and injuries. So when Lee looks up to spot Tsunade, he locks eyes with Gaara instead. Something washes over Lee at the sight, something inside of him untwisting and releasing. Gaara is okay, Gaara is unharmed. Lee didn’t know he had been terrified for Gaara until he saw those eyes. They stare at each other for a long moment before Lee raises his hand in a weak wave, wishing more than anything to tell Gaara how glad he is to see him. Gaara nods to him in return before turning to a Sand shinobi requesting his Kazekage’s attention and Lee feels his heart clench strangely.Or, Gaara and Lee see each other after the war. Everything falls in place.





	Weak

**Author's Note:**

> Guess which ship is my favorite...hmmmmm...

When the war was won and Lee awoke from the Infinite Tsukuyomi, he let everything bleed into his heart at once. Neji. Guy-Sensei. The genjutsu. Despite the bustling around him, the yelling, the frantic healers scrambling for the living, Lee could only stop and pant, clutch his fist to his chest and count his breaths. The sounds around him blended together and faded into thin murmur as he stood slowly, forcing his eyes to focus and search for something, anything. When he spots Tenten, tear tracks running through the grime on her cheeks, reality pulls Lee from his haze and he calls out to her. 

Her eyes snap to him and she sags in something like relief. Sore and beaten, Lee runs to her, pulling her into an embrace. She shoves her face into the hard plane of his chest. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” she whispers wetly. 

Lee says nothing, letting his heart ache for their loss, for their fallen teammate, their wounded sensei. He presses a firm kiss to her temple, cupping the back of her neck with his hand and says tightly, “Let’s find Guy-Sensei. Let’s go home.” Tenten nods against his flak vest. For Tenten, he thinks, he will be strong. He will not cry until he can be alone. For those he loves, he will do anything. 

 

While every nation counted their dead and prepared to return home, the leaders stood watch, speaking to their subordinates about numbers and injuries. So when Lee looks up to spot Tsunade, he locks eyes with Gaara instead. Something washes over Lee at the sight, something inside of him untwisting and releasing. Gaara is okay, Gaara is unharmed. Lee didn’t know he had been terrified for Gaara until he saw those eyes. They stare at each other for a long moment before Lee raises his hand in a weak wave, wishing more than anything to tell Gaara how glad he is to see him. Gaara nods to him in return before turning to a Sand shinobi requesting his Kazekage’s attention and Lee feels his heart clench strangely.

The trek back to Konoha is long and quiet. Lee lets his mind wander as his feet take over, walking beside Tenten and the cart carrying Guy-Sensei. He thinks of Neji, though it hurts more than he could put into words, and lets his hands shake and his eyes water, but no tears fall. He looks to Guy-Sensei’s unconscious form and feels wave after wave of fearful nausea rock his stomach. He thinks distantly to Gaara, feeling something he can’t name, though he’d been feeling it for some time now.

Arriving back at Konoha sends a sigh of relief over the troops. Lee and Tenten rush immediately to the hospital with Guy-Sensei, watching as Tsunade assesses his injuries and finally breaking down when she reports his condition as permanent. Lee spends the night by Guy-Sensei’s side, letting every tear soak into the hospital bed. Guy-Sensei, despite his grim frown upon hearing the news, pats Lee’s head and assures him that nothing could stop him from fighting, even if he is bound to a wheelchair. 

When Lee finally drags himself to his apartment, he collapses onto his bed, letting ugly sobs free from his chest, tears and snot smearing into his pillow. Nothing would ever be the same, he’s known that going into the war, but now it’s real, it’s true. He wants his sensei healthy again, he wants his teammate back, he wants to stop being strong for just a moment, to let someone else be strong for _him_. 

 

As the months pass, things get easier. Neji’s funeral is the most painful thing he’s ever gone through, but he hold Tenten’s hand through it all, letting her lean on him and cry. He spends long nights in his apartment feeling everything he didn’t allow himself to feel during the day. Some nights he’ll stare at the ceiling of his bedroom, praying to wake and find out that it was all a nightmare. He finds it ironic that, now, he wants to be dreaming when that almost ended his world before. Other nights he’s able to do nothing but stare at everything in the room to do with those he loved, those he lost and let grief seep from his skin. 

Things, he thinks, are getting better. If not better, then more manageable, and he can deal with that. It isn’t until there’s a Kage summit once more that Lee realizes how not-okay he was. Tsunade assigns him and Naruto with the mission to accompany her to the summit, held just outside of the village, for diplomatic and security reasons. Though she doesn’t say it, Lee knows it is also due to Guy-Sensei’s absence, and it hurts when she doesn’t look him in the eye as she gives the mission. 

When he stands at the walls of the round room, watching all the Kage sit and whisper with their advisors, he feels apprehension wind in his chest with the inescapable memory of what the last Kage summit led to. While he knows this is actually a peace talk, his fear persists throughout the entire meeting. He is so distracted with his own anxiety that he doesn’t notice when the meeting ends. Or that he’s been staring at Gaara through the entire meeting. 

When Naruto elbows him, he nearly jumps from his skin, jerking back to reality to see Naruto’s cheeky grin and the Kage standing from the table. Lamely, he figures he probably should have been listening. His eyes linger once more on Gaara, whose face reveals nothing about the way the meeting went.

“Something on your mind, Bushy Brows?” Naruto teases. He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and Lee pulled his together in confusion.

“I apologize for not being focused,” he replies, eyes trained on the floor. Then, a pair of sandals enter his vision and Lee’s gaze snaps up. “Kazekage-sama!” He throws himself into a bow, feeling his face flush slightly in embarrassment. 

“It’s good to see you, Lee,” Gaara says softly. “I hope to see more of you when you’re in Suna.”

Stammering, Lee stands ramrod straight, “Excuse me?”

“Maybe if you’d paid attention,” Naruto smiles harmlessly, “you’d have heard the Old Lady offer you for diplomatic services in Suna.”

Gaara has an easy smile on his face, however small it may be. Lee feels his face grow hotter. “Excuse me, Kazekage-sama, I was distracted during the meeting. I will be honored to return with you to Suna.” Lee bows once more. 

“Stand, Lee,” Gaara says. His eyes are soft when Lee meets them. Something blooms in his chest as Gaara nods at him and Naruto before leaving. 

Naruto smirks at him before jumping over to Tsunade, leaving Lee to smile dumbly, remembering the gentleness of Gaara’s eyes when he’d spoken to Lee. 

 

Gaara and the rest of the Sand shinobi stay in Konoha for the night, planning to leave the next morning, and Lee offers to escort Gaara around for the evening. Gaara listens contently as Lee tells him about life since the war, though carefully avoiding any talk of Neji or Guy-Sensei’s injuries. Lee suggests they order any food Gaara might want and take it to the training fields to see the sunset, so they order barbecue and rice, toting it over to the fields with their stomachs rumbling. 

Sitting against a training post, they dig into the food, neither speaking much. Lee appreciates this about Gaara, the comfortable silences. Gaara clicks his chopsticks together while he chews slowly, and Lee finds it quite endearing. Cute, he thinks. Their shoulders are pressed gently together and the warmth in Lee’s cheeks spreads through his chest. Lee thinks this is probably the first time since the war that he’s felt so at peace. 

Lee sets aside his takeaway box and leans his head back against the post. He feels Gaara’s eyes on him and lets the warmth in his chest lead him to turn his head and meet Gaara’s eyes. Though there’s no smile on Gaara’s face, Lee can see the comfort in the slouch of his shoulders, the droop of his eyelids, the smooth skin between his brows.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it,” Lee says dreamily. 

Gaara blinks slowly. “The sunset? Yes, it is rather beautiful.”

Lee hums, not revealing that he wasn’t talking about the sunset at all. All that time ago, before Gaara had even been kidnapped by the Akastuki, Lee remembers how he and Gaara had grown closer. He remembers how he’d thought often of Gaara as someone worth every good thing in the world, how he’d thought he’d love to be by Gaara’s side always. He hadn’t known what it meant back then, but he can see clearly now. This warm glow in his chest looking at Gaara, hearing Gaara, simply being near Gaara. He still wants to be by Gaara’s side always, but now it means something more. 

The relief at Gaara living through the war, the feelings buzzing through him at their eye contact, his awed staring during the Kage summit, and this moment of comfort and warmth. He loves the boy in front of him. Lee flashes a smile as the thought echoes in his mind.

“We should get you back, Kazekage-sama,” Lee murmurs, drunk off of his own thoughts. 

“Please,” Gaara puts his hand over Lee’s, folded in his lap, “call me Gaara.”

Lee’s smile widens and he nods, standing with Gaara to return him to his quarters for the night. The walk back is sweet and Lee’s hand tingles with the memory of Gaara’s touch. When they arrive at Gaara’s quarters, Lee grabs his hand in lieu of a shake only to lean in and press his lips to Gaara’s pale cheek. He whispers a goodnight and disappears to his own home, leaving Gaara as red as his hair and his mouth parted.

 

The trip back to Suna allows for little contact between Gaara and Lee, so he occupies himself with odd training exercises as they walk. When they reach Suna, it’s nighttime and Lee is escorted to his quarters so he can shower off the grime and sweat from travel. He’s just finished dressing in loose linens instead of his training gear and toweling the water from his thick hair when a knock sounds at his door. He opens it, water droplets dripping down his cheek, to see Gaara. Blushing. 

“Oh, Gaara,” Lee smiles easily, gesturing for him to come inside. He closes the door, rambling, “I figured you’d be in your office for a while sorting out paperwork -” He stops himself when he turns around, faced with Gaara’s close proximity. Gaara presses a cool hand to Lee’s chest and suddenly their cheeks are competing to get the darkest blush. 

“Lee,” Gaara says evenly. “Lee, I…I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know what I want. I’ve known for a long time.”

Lee swallows. “What do you want, Gaara?”

Gaara never answers him. Instead, he lifts his chin, giving Lee a moment to turn him away, before pressing closer, pressing their lips together. Lee breathes evenly through his nose, panic rising in his chest as he raises a hand to Gaara’s jaw, turning him so their lips slot in place and suddenly they’re sighing into the feeling. Gaara’s fingers curl where he placed them in the center of Lee’s solar plexus and Lee is overcome a sense of pride at pulling reactions from this beautiful person with kisses alone. 

Lee’s other hand finds Gaara’s waist atop thick clothing as they pull apart. Lee blinks his eyes open and says, “I’ve wanted that for a long time as well. Only I didn’t know it.”

A breath laughs over his lips and Lee is overcome with the urge to kiss Gaara again, so he does. The hand on Gaara’s jaw slips down to pet at his neck, pulling a sweet whine from his throat. Lee hums, combing his fingers into Gaara’s hair to massage his scalp, releasing noise after noise into the kiss, and Lee can feel Gaara tremble against him. At first, Lee chalks it up to Gaara being sensitive, rarely touched so intimately, before he realizes it’s more than that. Gaara is touch starved, rarely touched at all. Lee wants to fix that.

Rather than indulging his desires, Lee pulls off with a few more pecks to Gaara’s lips, then, his cheeks, his nose, his tattoo. He presses their foreheads together and whispers, “Stay with me?” 

When Gaara meets his eyes, he’s dazed, lips parted and wet, cheeks flushed. He nods, allowing Lee to pull him to the bed, laying them both down. Lee’s arms circle around his waist and Gaara twists his hands in the linens covering Lee’s torso. For a moment, they only look at once another.

“You are amazing, Lee,” Gaara says, so low and breathy that Lee might not have heard had he been further away. “Truly amazing.” Lee merely shakes his head lightly, not wanting to argue or put himself down. “You are, Lee. Believe me.”

Gaara’s eyes are pleading. Lee concedes, “I’m not used to being told that.” A long stretch of silence looms over them. Not necessarily tense or uncomfortable, but Lee knows Gaara has something to say, he only needs a moment to say it. 

“Lee,” Gaara whispers, his voice small. “I never got to tell you…I’m sorry for what happened to Guy…and Neji.” The words are a punch to Lee’s gut, nausea overtaking any softness he’d had. “They didn’t deserve that, and neither did you.”

“Gaara, please,” Lee chokes, his eyes flooding. “I can’t…I can’t do this.”

“But you have to,” Gaara insists. Lee bites his lip until he tastes blood, trying so hard to keep his tears from falling. “You did your best out there, there was nothing you could have done to save them.”

A sob, deep and ugly, bubbles from his chest and suddenly Lee can’t contain it anymore. All the strength he’d been displaying crumbles, and he shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes and cries out. “ _I’m sorry_ ,” he wails, allowing Gaara to cradle his body. Everything he’d been pushing from his mind, everything he’d been forcing himself to ignore for the sake of those he loves, it all crashes into him at once. It hurts worse than any battle he’s fought, he feels like he’s shattering at last. Gaara is here, though, to hold his pieces together and pet his hair while he loses everything. 

A childish part of him rages, finally screams that it isn’t fair, this can’t be real, he _doesn’t want it this way._ He wants to turn back time, raise the dead, _anything_ , as long as he got Neji back, as long as Guy-Sensei got his legs back. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted. He pushes the words into Gaara’s chest as he cries, begs, curses. Gaara’s hold on him is tight and silent, no shushing, no assurances. He allows Lee to fall apart, to become weak when he’d always been strong. 

When Lee’s tears slow and his breathing turns even, he lowers his hands from his face to caress Gaara’s bicep resting over his shoulder. He feels gross and tired and embarrassed, but he also feels like a weight has been taken off of his lungs. He sniffs quietly, his grated voice wrapping itself around a “thank you” as he slowly drifts further into sleep. Gaara says nothing, but presses a kiss to the top of Lee’s head. For the first time in months, Lee feels the deep throb in his chest, but is able to breathe through it.

 

For the next couple of weeks, Lee and Gaara dance around each other in public, not quite wanting everyone to know about their relationship. In private, they’re sweet to one another, all kisses and gentle conversation. For the first few nights, Gaara slept in Lee’s room, which only led to guards searching and panicking over their leader. Now, Gaara’s highest guards are posted at his chambers each night and make way when Lee knocks on the thick door. 

Tonight is no different, and Lee nods to the guards who pay him no heed. When Gaara’s chamber door opens, Lee sweeps in to take Gaara’s mouth and brush the backs of his fingers over Gaara’s face. Lee’s day was long, filled with meetings and reading and signing. All Lee wants is to wrap himself in Gaara, to wisp away to a world where it is just them. Lee’s hand lands at the small of Gaara’s back, inching up the linen shirt he goes to bed in. Gaara sucks in a sharp breath at the contact and Lee feels his stomach buzz in interest. 

Each night, something like this occurs: Lee touching, Gaara reacting, _Lee_ reacting. Each night Lee pushes down the urge to strip Gaara of his clothes and make him reveal just how sensitive he really is. And now, he moves to place his hand back over the fabric of Gaara’s sleep shirt before Gaara stops him with a breathy “wait” against his lips. Lee freezes, hears Gaara swallow hard, and nearly flexes his fingers over the lush skin below him. He waits, knows he would happily wait a thousand years for Gaara.

“I want…” Gaara trails off.

Lee’s stomach tightens and burns with arousal. “What do you want, Gaara?” For a moment, their lips brush in the silence, and Lee almost gives in to kiss him once more, but refrains. Gaara is voicing a desire, he cannot distract him. 

Then, “I want you to touch me the way you want to.” He takes a shuddering breath, “I want to be with you…intimately.”

Lee is lost in space for a split second, comprehending what Gaara said, confirming that the words are real, not just his imagination. Then he grips Gaara by the hips, moving in to bite at Gaara’s mouth as he pushes back into the room where he knows the bed lies. Gaara breathes heavy before sitting on the bed, making Lee lean down to hold their kiss until he’s pushing Gaara to lay back. Straddling Gaara’s hips, Lee makes quick work of the laces holding the linen shirt together, smoothing his hand reverently over the flawless expanse of skin before him.

Choking on a groan, Gaara gasps, “Lee.”

“You are gorgeous,” Lee sighs, eyeing the doubt that flashes over Gaara’s face. “I want to make you feel that way.”

“Lee.”

“Tell me if you wish to stop,” Lee says before swooping in to kiss Gaara once more, then pressing a slow, lazy line of kisses over Gaara’s neck, pulling a sharp gasp from him like he has no choice. 

Gaara’s hands grip at Lee’s back desperately, unable to contain the jerks and whines of his body as Lee lavishes his neck with careful attention, scraping his teeth lightly over the skin just to feel the way Gaara’s spine bows. His hands rub up and down Gaara’s torso, passing over his nipples so as to not overwhelm him, whispering awed confessions against his neck as Gaara trembles. Beneath him, he can feel where Gaara is aroused, poking at the back of his thigh through the thin fabric of his sleep pants. Lee hums, slowly backing himself up to kiss lower down Gaara’s chest, allowing his thumbs to gently brush his nipples. 

“ _Hah_ ,” Gaara breathes. “Lee, please.”

“Please what?”

“ _Touch me_.”

With a smirk, Lee presses firmly against Gaara’s nipples, twisting them under the heaving of Gaara’s chest as he lowers his hips over Gaara’s erection. A noise Lee had never imagined gets stuck in Gaara’s throat, choking him and gurgling out like someone is strangling him. Gaara’s hips buck up uncontrollably, and Lee meets him move for move. Briefly, Lee looks up to see Gaara’s beet-red face, his hands fisted in the sheets above him, eyes squeezed shut as he groans through the pleasure coursing through him. It’s lovely, so beautiful that Lee wants to keep it forever printed on the back of his eyelids so he may see it whenever he blinks. 

Lee drops his head once more to kiss at Gaara’s chest, moving one thumb so he can take a nipple into his mouth, feeling Gaara lock every muscle beneath him. He’s close. Lee reaches down to pull at the waistband of Gaara’s sleep pants before biting down and circling Gaara’s dick in his hand. 

And that’s all it takes. 

With a shout, Gaara seizes and bows from the mattress, his dick twitching and pulsing in Lee’s hand as he comes messily over his stomach. A pathetic, helpless shout bounces off the walls and Gaara’s hands latch onto Lee’s shoulders, pushing his hips against Lee’s hand to work himself through his orgasm. Each of his breaths comes out as a whine, and Lee surges up to catch them in his own mouth, kissing Gaara fiercely as he eases the movements of his body. 

It takes several minutes for Gaara to come back to himself, to slow his breathing and ease the shaking of his limbs. His kisses grow softer and Lee moves to cradle Gaara’s face in his hands. Gaara’s blush is feverish against his hands. 

“Thank you,” Gaara says weakly, “for not letting me soil my pants.” Lee laughs loud at that. Nervously, Gaara’s eyes open and flutter from Lee’s face to his crotch. “I - I’ve never, um…but…may I touch you?”

With a sweet smile, Lee nods, guiding one of Gaara’s hands from his shoulder to his previously ignored erection. Lowly, Lee murmurs, “Let me show you.” Gaara’s returning smile is small, but sends Lee’s heart racing with affection. 

Yes, he thinks later, as they lie quietly as the rest of the village sleeps, he will love spending the rest of his life at Gaara’s side. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I love comments and kudos, but I do moderate comments because I don't like seeing gross comments fetishizing my work. This isn't "omg sinful!". Please don't make those types of comments. All other comments will be accepted and are encouraged! Thank you.  
> Also check out the song that kinda inspired the title: Weak by Seether


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